Independence support for people with Learning Disabilities and Autism in Swindon Soft Market Testing

Independence support for people with Learning Disabilities and Autism in Swindon Soft Market Testing

Swindon Borough Council is seeking input from the market for Independence support for people with Learning Disabilities and Autism. This market assessment is not part of the procurement process, but is purely investigative in nature, to potentially assist the Council in defining a specification and contract for the services.

In preparation for this, it is our intention to hold some ‘Soft Market Testing’ (Preliminary market consultations) Workshop to review the current supply market.
The same information will be gathered from all providers, who wish to participate in the Soft Market testing workshop to assist the Council.

This advert relates to a proposed ‘soft market testing’ exercise only and is NOT a call for competition.

Any contracts for services or supplies relating to this exercise may be subject to separate procurement process(es) in accordance with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (as amended).
All participants in this ‘soft market testing’ exercise shall be responsible for their own costs (including third party costs) and the Contracting Authority shall have no liability to any participant.

Description

The service will be for adults over the age of 18 living within Swindon who have been diagnosed with or identify as having a mild to moderate learning disability and / or autism.

The core of the service will be to:

• Provide a service that seeks to promote the independence and empowerment of individuals
• Provide opportunities for a range of stimulating activities, which are appropriate to the age, interest and ability of people attending the service.
• Support service users to access to mainstream social and leisure based facilities
• Encourage peer support to empower service users to access community opportunities.
• Work with other support services to maximise support and access to opportunities.
• Support volunteers to help deliver the service.
• Provide learning disability and autism awareness sessions to businesses and leisure providers with the aim to build understanding of what it means to have a learning disability.
• Involve service users in the development of the activities provided

The purpose of this Soft Market Test is to gain intelligence on the supply market for Swindon Borough Council’s requirements, including information that will help define the most appropriate structure and plan for any potential competitive procurement exercise.
Further details relating to the outline specification are provided in the attachments section on the South West Portal.
Process and Workshop details

Details of the workshop are as follows:
Venue:
Swindon Borough Council
Civic Offices
Euclid Street
Swindon
SN1 2JH
Date 6th November Time: 13:00
Attendees are required to be submitted no later than 30 October 2017, 16:00 hrs UK Local time by e-mail to Terry Johnson TJohnson2@swindon.gov.uk only. Places are restricted to 2 per provider as space is short.

For the avoidance of doubt, no information provided in response to this invite will be used by the Council in assessing providers during any future procurement process, scheduled to commence in 2016.

If you require any clarifications on the soft market testing documents please submit these in writing via e-mail, including the project name clearly in the e-mail title, to Terry Johnson TJohnson2@swindon.gov.uk by 26th October 2017, 1200 hrs UK Local time.

The Council’s responses to these clarification questions will be uploaded as attachments on the project webpage attachments section. Therefore it is the Supplier’s responsibility to check the site regularly for updates to clarifications, as you will not be advised when updates have been made.


We would encourage you to click on the ‘Register interest’ button to help the Council monitor the level of interest in this opportunity.


Following this soft market testing exercise it is our intention to complete a competitive procurement exercise for this contract.